Marian Morgan believed that dance could be used to enhance the instruction of just about any subject. And back in 1916, she toured the country with her six dancers, demonstrating how dance-enhanced education would work.

The basic theory was that students would pay more attention if young female dancers performed at the front of the classroom as the lecturer talked. For example, as explained by the Washington Post (Aug 20, 1916):

Picture a fat freshman dosing in the chemistry class. The day before he had said boldly, and unashamed, 'I think I'll cut that beastly class in chemistry. I don't care what those darned atoms do to each other.' The fat freshman enters the class, bored and rebellious. He remains in it sleepy and indifferent. Suddenly he starts, suppressed a yawn, stealthily arranges his tie sheepishly, combs the hair with hurried fingers.

What happened? Has Old Bones (his disrespectful nickname for the professor of chemistry) been rooting around some second-hand store and found Aladdin's lamp?

The freshman's perception, newly acute, pierces his usual mental haze. The scene is a real one and delightful. True, 'Old Bones' is continuing his discourse. He is describing the chemistry of the blood. 'But this war of atoms may be a beneficent one,' he drones. 'The presence of disease-breeding bacilli in the blood is not necessarily destructive. For there are vigilant baccilli who lay hold upon the destroyers and slay them, as you see illustrated by this dance.'

The eyes of the freshmen beam. Never have 'Old Bones'' lectures been rewarded by such rapt and flattering attention. On the platform one lithe young Amazon in short Roman tunic is struggling with another.

Too bad this never caught on. Certainly would have improved a lot of lectures I had to sit through back in my college days.

A rare case of an exciting, full-contact economics class. Rita Balaban, a senior lecturer in economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, knew there was a school tradition of classes being disrupted by masked streakers. So when it happened to her — three masked streakers rushing into her classroom — she was "mentally prepared." She said, "To me, it was a no-brainer. It was like, you're coming right at me. This is too easy. I grab the one guy's mask and just -- pfsh! -- pulled it right off, no problem! The other guy wasn't so easy. He dragged me out into the hall." [inside higher ed]

Mark Gregory invented the Buttleopener, which is a bottle opener shaped like a woman's buttocks. Gregory also served as a member of the Williamson County school board in Tennessee, recently rising to become chairman. But the two aspects of his life (buttleopener inventor and school board chairman) have proven to be incompatible. Gregory recently resigned his position as chairman, bowing to pressure from parents who really, really didn't want him involved with the school board. [rawstory.com]

Back in 1978, Lidia Mostovy was chosen to deliver the valedictory address at the 99th commencement of Frank H. Morrell High School, so she decided to give it in Latin. Her speech began: "Olim Alexander Magnus dixit: 'Meis parentibus vitam debeo, meis magistris, vitam bonam.'"

She explained that she "wanted to add dignity to the graduation exercises and... draw attention to the high school's Latin program. 'A lot of people ask why take Latin — you're not going to use it. So now I will.'"

Since I took Latin throughout high school, and even participated in our high school's Latin play, I'm sympathetic to what she did. And I guess it probably wasn't any more or less boring than any other high school valediction, just because no one could understand it.